Research Bitcoin & Global Poverty -- Help and advice needed

[BruceFenton]

My company is considering doing some extensive research on how Bitcoin and Blockchain / related technologies can help the world's poorest people.

I'm personally very interested in how this technology can change our global economy.   When I refer to poor people I mean people who are in the most poor economies and who earn less than $1-10 a day.

We are talking about specific, high level and actionable things that understand the complexity of how things work in the poorest places.

Examples would be looking at SMS based services for money transfer, backing deeds on Blockchain tech or systems which lock value for remittances.   (There are many other examples)

WHAT I NEED HELP WITH:

Not so much ideas and thoughts for the research but the best PLAN of how to approach.

I know a lot of people in Bitcoin and with my staff could do a lot of one hour interviews.  We could video tape and transcribe them for example.  Would this be a good start in your opinion?

Should we publish findings on GitHub based in sections by solution type?

What's a good methodology to use for a research project like this?  Which experts should we speak with beyond the obvious?

In an ever changing space how helpful is academic research summary versus new info and what are the best ways to get that new info other than interviews?

If you were in my office and I asked for ideas on how to create the best, most comprehensive research on Bitcoin and crypto tech and how it can help the poor, what would you say?


(Note I'm super active in Bitcoin and also have worked with financial and development clients, nothing I say about bitcoin should ever be construed as speaking for or being related to my clients.)

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[bg002h]

Charles texted me a link to his Tedx talk this morning: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=97ufCT6lQcY

His points about documentation, identity, ownership, insurance are very insightful. He'd be my go to guy for thoughts on your post.

[BruceFenton]

Thank you

[franky1]

do something practical.

for instance if you are going to employ someone in america for 2 hours to go out and survey their local community with whatever questions you want locals to answer, paying the employee minimum wage for america $7.50 ($15 for 2 hours), but pay them in bitcoin 0.04btc.
then find someone in the poorest country of the world to do 2 hours of surveys and pay them 0.04btc aswell

obviously you will have the results from whatever surveys you ask your employees to question their communities about. but you can then ask how the employee's themselves used their bitcoin income, what they spent it on and how much that bitcoin could be utilized at its best.

EG in america it may only by 2 sandwiches and a coffee.. but in a poor country it could feed someone for a week.

i see bitcoin as being the levelling field that can bring the poorest countries hourly labour costs inline with the developed countries. where by a programmer in India would be paid 0.02btc per hour, the exact same as an american.

or

would capitalism kick in where bitcoin would be used to find programmers in india to pay them 0.01 PER DAY ($3.50) and continue the process of migrating labour away from developed countries and into poor countries to keep costs down for greed/profit of the employer.

obviously you have a list of things you will be researching. but i think paying anyone involved in your research the exact same amount to work for you and run around surveying their communities and that such, no matter what country they are in would, by itself yield some useful information.

[Kprawn]

What will your company do for the poorest people in the world?

I am also busy with a project, to help the poor ---> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2koqnj/can_faucets_make_a_difference_paying_it_forward/

Identifying the genuine charity organizations, from the "Scammers" is a difficult task, but WE getting there.

It is always better, to have trustworthy people on the ground, doing the identification and accreditation of these organizations, to avoid "Red" faces later on.

If you can help, with my project, it would be appreciated. {This has become one of my "Bucket list" items and I have to finish what I started}

Let me know, what else you need and please collaborate with me, to identify legitimate organizations for our work.     

[BruceFenton]

It's mainly research at this stage.

I think that a lot of people have discussed this but we need more data and concrete examples.

[DannyHamilton]

- snip -
less than $1-10 a day.
- snip -

Less than $1 a day?

Less than $10 a day?

Which is it?

Is $2 less than $1-10?

Is $9 less than $1-10?

If this is any indication of your attention to detail, then I suspect that your research will result in quite a bit of useless information.

[jdbtracker]

The best plan is to use what you got closest to the source. It's hard to separate the scammers from legitimate aid organizations.
and monetizing the effort can be hard, but I'm sure Bitcoin makes that a little easier.

We would need to create a economy within the community, injecting a means of exchange among the poor... Bitcoin someday when everyone has Smart Phones.
But now we begin providing them income then services, Pay people to find out about their community, make it Open Source so we have information about the community and from there
we can begin to assess what the community needs to begin a proper business model creating a looping system to accelerate the velocity of money in the community.
The model could follow a Distributed Corporation model where people are paid for their meaningful assistance, creating another loop within the corporation to drum up support.

With this model we can authenticate and distribute the available support for the project globally, paying for transcripts of Interviews, translations and work confirmation, separating
every team member into different work allocations every other week, regardless of location, pay for good work done and monitor it by dedicated immediate members of your business team.
Start an investment fund, and turn it into a for-profit Aid organization, injecting money into these communities to find out about them, know them, help them, analyze their conditions by a paid
Global Distributed Crowd Sourced Professional force

First find out about the communities, choose the one that is closest to access to the Internet and Smart Phones.

Hire people locally to begin taking interviews, pay people for their time so they leave with a little money, hire them to find out about their community.

Make partnerships with local exchanges and Businesses to accept Bitcoin, provide them with a means of making their own Paper Wallets which they can give to customers as change in different denominations.
This way they can start a mini economy moving Bitcoin around, with self-employed individuals with Smart Phones verifying the Paper wallets for people around the community and exchanging paper wallets for them.

Begin Crowd Sourcing Work to these people and provide qualified individuals to train them in skills that they need to bring their communities out of poverty. We follow the distributed model completely with Verified Designated Staff monitoring the process and work.

Trust me if someone learns a new language because they can get paid for translation services that is a plus, they learn to fix shoes, they get paid in Bitcoin and can redeem them at the exchange for cash.
transportation, rental services, the amenities that we take for granted and giving them the skills, knowledge, systems and monitor the communities development as we perfect the process and begin to monetize the system we expand along the Internet and Power infrastructure; by the time it reaches the communities most in need our method is perfected, we will be able to provide them with a healthy starter engineered economy.

Further develop the economy by providing tools to get what the community needs done. We sell it to them hiring locals, phones, tools, equipment as the economy develops.

If we crowd source this on our end here, we can get professionals to perform vital analysis. Finding connections Items and Services needed by the community to make it grow always in touch and injecting money into their community, Because People cannot live on Bread alone, they need much more assistance than we can imagine.

In the end we can Begin Monetizing Economy development, our success determines our pay.

[exoton]

I don't think bitcoin can help people in countries that have this low of a standard of living. When a country has people living on less then $10 (equivalent) per day, the economy is not going to lose very much from inefficiencies in payment processing (neither in cost nor time), nor will they have a large concern about counterfeiting as it would be too obvious when people are spending too much money when compared to others and what they are making. These are all things that bitcoin solves

[lolled]

I don't think bitcoin can help people in countries that have this low of a standard of living. When a country has people living on less then $10 (equivalent) per day, the economy is not going to lose very much from inefficiencies in payment processing (neither in cost nor time), nor will they have a large concern about counterfeiting as it would be too obvious when people are spending too much money when compared to others and what they are making. These are all things that bitcoin solves

They can also not afford technologies like a smart phone which would be another important required factor.

[shawshankinmate37927]

If you were in my office and I asked for ideas on how to create the best, most comprehensive research on Bitcoin and crypto tech and how it can help the poor, what would you say?

It's not so much the technology of Bitcoin that is going to help the planet's poor people, but the economics.  Having a stateless money that is scarce as an alternative to fiat.  Fiat is juat a tool that bankers and politicians use to steal value from the productive masses through expansion of the money supply. Having the ability to opt out of their fiat systems will solve that problem.

[commandrix]

Maybe you could talk about how Bitcoin can help the unbanked if you have some philanthropist who is willing to hand out cheap tablets and provide places where they can pick up free Wi-Fi so they can participate in the world marketplace, and it would help if more people who hire freelancers would pay in Bitcoin. Too many people aren't poor because they're lazy; they're poor because they don't have access to most of the financial services that the rest of us have and they don't have access to ways they can sell their services. Bitcoin can help with that if somebody is willing to make an initial investment.

[shawshankinmate37927]

Maybe you could talk about how Bitcoin can help the unbanked if you have some philanthropist who is willing to hand out cheap tablets and provide places where they can pick up free Wi-Fi so they can participate in the world marketplace, and it would help if more people who hire freelancers would pay in Bitcoin. Too many people aren't poor because they're lazy; they're poor because they don't have access to most of the financial services that the rest of us have and they don't have access to ways they can sell their services. Bitcoin can help with that if somebody is willing to make an initial investment.

I think the most affordable option for the majority of the planet's poor is going to be an SMS based system.

[exoton]

I don't think bitcoin can help people in countries that have this low of a standard of living. When a country has people living on less then $10 (equivalent) per day, the economy is not going to lose very much from inefficiencies in payment processing (neither in cost nor time), nor will they have a large concern about counterfeiting as it would be too obvious when people are spending too much money when compared to others and what they are making. These are all things that bitcoin solves

They can also not afford technologies like a smart phone which would be another important required factor.

Smart phone technologies are getting substantially cheaper over time. Even the latest iPhone (which is probably the most expensive smart phone to produce) only costs a few hundred dollars to produce, but sells for $800+ without a contract. Older iPhone models retail for next to nothing.

Maybe you could talk about how Bitcoin can help the unbanked if you have some philanthropist who is willing to hand out cheap tablets and provide places where they can pick up free Wi-Fi so they can participate in the world marketplace, and it would help if more people who hire freelancers would pay in Bitcoin. Too many people aren't poor because they're lazy; they're poor because they don't have access to most of the financial services that the rest of us have and they don't have access to ways they can sell their services. Bitcoin can help with that if somebody is willing to make an initial investment.

This may be true, however it would require investment from outside sources. The financial infrastructure that Bitcoin could potentially provide would take a long time to develop and a longer time to have long term positive impacts on the overall standard of living of such an economy

[franky1]

I don't think bitcoin can help people in countries that have this low of a standard of living. When a country has people living on less then $10 (equivalent) per day, the economy is not going to lose very much from inefficiencies in payment processing (neither in cost nor time), nor will they have a large concern about counterfeiting as it would be too obvious when people are spending too much money when compared to others and what they are making. These are all things that bitcoin solves

if you think that 3rd world countries can only benefit from FIAT.. you are wrong.

take for instance the congo.. millions of people are hundreds of miles away from a bank, never have birth certificates or identification to set up proper bank accounts and their use of funds is local, so having to deposit funds into a bank miles away is useless to them, as they will find it hard to deposit work salary into such distant bank account and then to later go to a bank every few days to withdraw funds to spend at local shops in their local town, hundreds of miles away from the bank.. so dont think banks are the solution. for those that do work in the congo, who get a regular wage.

but guess what.. the people of congo use mpesa.. which is literally trading phone call time 'minutes'. this means they do not need to travel to deposit/withdraw and they don't need identity information to set up accounts.

the only problem with mpesa, is the centralized nature. meaning that all the 'call time' is owned by a phone company, and a phone company can easily remove funds from users call time balance, people can do reverse dialing services to call another persons phone and basically suck another persons balance dry and the perpetrator gets to keep a percentage of the call time.

so bitcoin which is not centralized, but is untouchable by third party services to simply empty dry has its advantages over banks and mpesa.

in places like africa that use mpesa will find it easy to move from mpesa to bitcoin as the user interface is similar. comparing mpesa to credit cards, mpesa is closer to what bitcoin does thus africa adopting bitcoin would be far easier then trying to get a guy on wall street, new york to give up their credit card.

[jdbtracker]

  Not necessarily if the products, services and jobs provided to these people are right we can begin a small economic loop, where we provide some capital and have products on hand to enhance them.
We pay them for something we want from them, information and we provide services and products that they can use to gain more Bitcoin in our little closed system. Think of it as gamifying the system.
All the products and services we will offer give them a chance to earn more money in one single consolidated location.

  The products can be simple, pencils, pen paper to complete assignments; Low end Smart phones for access to the network where they can begin doing work online for others or train them in skills like home building, cooking, garment repairs, Shoe repair anything to increase use re-use recycle methods... making them efficient with what they have. Since everyone is being paid in Bitcoin through paper wallets we can create a closed loop system slowly garnering support and capabilities from the community till they are capable enough to afford, high end Smart Phones, quad rotors with wi-fi hot spots using cjdns, technical skills advancement using Open Badges to guarantee the communities participants are being serviced in the best way, in a verifiable way so that the community always knows who to go for, for best services.

  Sensors so they can monitor their crops and products for hydroponics within shanty town communities for local fresh efficiently produced foods. We begin helping them, we show them how to get it all done, and then we train people from the community to manage it, once we are sure they can do it efficiently and are earning a good wage, they have access to the communities index of needs and they are being met consistently we move on to the next community and leave supervisors to monitor the last ones development.

  Give them access to 3D printers like the Rep Rap so they can produce small goods for their community and recycling stations to separate and grind up plastics for 3D printing within the community.

the Key elements within a shanty town would be, food, shelter, tools, skills and education, and which ever needs they may have, we provide the closed loop economy for them to thrive. Build up their health so they can work and think effectively, teach them to build better homes so that they are safe and secure, provide them skills to make the tools they need and sell them to other entrepreneurs, train them to teach others and spread the system. We build the economy for them and train them to run it.

[BruceFenton]

Less than $1 a day?

Less than $10 a day?

Which is it?

Is $2 less than $1-10?

Is $9 less than $1-10?

If this is any indication of your attention to detail, then I suspect that your research will result in quite a bit of useless information.

Not sure how you can judge the quality of research which hasn't even been done yet by a very basic comment.

I specified $1-10 per day because I wanted to differentiate between the truest global poor and something like low income people in America.

I said $1-10 because it's not only about the very poorest couple billion who live on a dollar a day or so or abiut the ones who live on $10 a day....but both groups and people in between.   Both groups are still extremely poor -- but someone earning $10 may very well have access to an SMS capable phone and benefit from micro loans etc.    For those much poorer then it's more about looking at solutions like using the tech to reduce overal fraud in aid, provide deeds for property ownership and improve the economy.

[DannyHamilton]

Less than $1 a day?

Less than $10 a day?

Which is it?

Is $2 less than $1-10?

Is $9 less than $1-10?

If this is any indication of your attention to detail, then I suspect that your research will result in quite a bit of useless information.

Not sure how you can judge the quality of research which hasn't even been done yet by a very basic comment.

I specified $1-10 per day because I wanted to differentiate between the truest global poor and something like low income people in America.

I said $1-10 because it's not only about the very poorest couple billion who live on a dollar a day or so or abiut the ones who live on $10 a day....but both groups and people in between.   Both groups are still extremely poor -- but someone earning $10 may very well have access to an SMS capable phone and benefit from micro loans etc.    For those much poorer then it's more about looking at solutions like using the tech to reduce overal fraud in aid, provide deeds for property ownership and improve the economy.

So, when you said "the most poor economies and who earn less than $1-10 a day" what you actually meant was "the most poor economies and who earn less than $10 a day".

Notice that those that earn $0.50 per day earn "less than $10 a day" so they are included in that statement.  There is no need to state a range when you are stating "less than".  Less than IS a range.

[exoton]

I don't think bitcoin can help people in countries that have this low of a standard of living. When a country has people living on less then $10 (equivalent) per day, the economy is not going to lose very much from inefficiencies in payment processing (neither in cost nor time), nor will they have a large concern about counterfeiting as it would be too obvious when people are spending too much money when compared to others and what they are making. These are all things that bitcoin solves

if you think that 3rd world countries can only benefit from FIAT.. you are wrong.

take for instance the congo.. millions of people are hundreds of miles away from a bank, never have birth certificates or identification to set up proper bank accounts and their use of funds is local, so having to deposit funds into a bank miles away is useless to them, as they will find it hard to deposit work salary into such distant bank account and then to later go to a bank every few days to withdraw funds to spend at local shops in their local town, hundreds of miles away from the bank.. so dont think banks are the solution. for those that do work in the congo, who get a regular wage.

I am not saying that people in third world countries would only benefit from fiat, I am saying that people in 3rd world countries would not receive an additional benefit from bitcoin. The people in countries that live on less then $10 per day are not able to engage in enough commerce that they would receive a meaningful benefit. These people would probably have very little use from any kind of payment and/or savings vehicle.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=884345.msg9772095#msg9772095
but guess what.. the people of congo use mpesa.. which is literally trading phone call time 'minutes'. this means they do not need to travel to deposit/withdraw and they don't need identity information to set up accounts.

the only problem with mpesa, is the centralized nature. meaning that all the 'call time' is owned by a phone company, and a phone company can easily remove funds from users call time balance, people can do reverse dialing services to call another persons phone and basically suck another persons balance dry and the perpetrator gets to keep a percentage of the call time.[/quote]I don't think people who are living on less then $10 per day are using mpesa. I would certainly agree that bitcoin would make a great replacement for mpesa for people/places that use/trade mpesa minutes.

I would think that mpesa is generally used by people who have a slightly greater standard of living then $10 per day